SSDI and unemployment: recent developments

A previous post in April 2015 described how the Department of Workforce Development is attempting to get around the Labor and Industry Review Commission’s decision in Kluczynski.

Since that post, there has been a series of new developments.

The number of SSDI claimants keeps increasing

When the Department first proposed eliminating eligibility for unemployment benefits for all those receiving SSDI benefits, the Department indicated that the prohibition was likely to affect no more than fifty claimants.

In February 2015, the Department informed the Advisory Council that the SSDI ban affected 687 claimants in January 2014 when enforcement began.

In May 2015, this number has increased even further. The Advisory Council’s 2015 report at p.8 has the following update on the SSDI prohibition:

SSDI and UI Payments

2013 Wisconsin Act 36 provides a claimant cannot simultaneously collect both Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits and UI benefits.

Primary Statute Created: Wis. Stat. §§108.04 (2) (h) and 108.04 (12)(f).

The ban on simultaneously collecting both Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits and UI benefits saved hundreds of thousands of dollars for the UI Trust Fund as close to 3,500 UI claims have been denied through early May 2015.

DWD wants to back-date its new SSDI legislation to 4 January 2014

As previously noted, in April 2015 the Advisory Council approved a new prohibition on SSDI benefits intended to fix the poor drafting of the original SSDI prohibition.

At the May 19th council meeting, the Department announced that this new SSDI prohibition would be back-dated to 4 January 2014, the date of the original SSDI prohibition. This back-dating is already included in the DWD-sponsored bill being drafted.

A recent court case found in favor of the Department

A few cases continue to be appealed concerning claimants receiving SSDI benefits who still want their unemployment benefits because of their prior work. Here is an excerpt from a recent letter I sent the Commission in one of those cases. In this letter, I describe a circuit court decision that found Kluczynski unpersuasive.

This appeal to the Commission concerns the Commission’s understanding of Wis. Stat. § 108.04(12)(f)(1), enacted pursuant to 2013 Wis. Act 36, and as detailed in Kluczynski, UI Hearing No. 14400214AP (30 May 2014).

In Kluczynski, the Commission held that this statute unambiguously restricted receipt of unemployment benefits to the “given week” a claimant “actually receives” his or her SSDI benefits. In other weeks where unemployment benefits can be received and for which no disability benefits are actually received, claimants are still eligible for their unemployment benefits.

As the Commission and the Department are aware, Judge Neiss recently held in DWD v. LIRC, Dane County Circuit Court Case No. 2014-CV-3249 (27 May 2015) that the statutory text at issue here was ambiguous because two state agencies — the Commission and the Department — offered opposing interpretations of the statute. The court then goes on to observe that an intransitive definition of “receives” means the act of receiving, and so a person who “actually receives [SSDI benefits] in a given week” is, pursuant to Wis. Stat. § 108.04(12)(f)(1), someone who is identified as an SSDI recipient for each week of their unemployment eligibility. As a result, Judge Neiss concluded, this prohibition on receiving unemployment benefits applied constructively to all the weeks in a month despite the modifiers “actually . . . in a given week” in the statute about “receiving” SSDI benefits. In reaching this conclusion, Judge Neiss has seemingly stretched statutory text to create an ambiguity and reach an intended outcome rather than first reading the text itself as part of the state’s unemployment law as a whole.

NOTE: As noted in Kluczynski, constructive receipt of one-time payment across several weeks in order to determine eligibility for unemployment benefits is provided for in Wis. Stat. § 108.05(7)(d) regarding pension payments. So, there is no need to find ambiguity in one provision of unemployment law to reach a result for which another provision of unemployment already offers unambiguous language regarding the constructive receipt of payments. As proffered by the Commission in Kluczynski, this language could have accomplished the intended result simply by replacing “shall allocate and attribute” with “shall deem and attribute” in this constructive receipt language.

The Commission should not adopt this outcome in this appeal but instead affirm its analysis in Kluczynski. The Commission’s explanation of its analysis in Kluczynski did NOT imply that this statutory text was actually ambiguous, as Judge Neiss holds. Rather, the Commission explained in its memorandum opinion in Kluczynski why the Department’s arguments for its proffered interpretation of unambiguous text are mistaken and why its arguments about the statute being ambiguous were insufficient. Because the statutory text as written does not accomplish its intended result, it should not be rewritten by the Commission or the courts to do so.

SSDI and unemployment

LIRC recently issues a lengthly and well-reasoned decision regarding what recent changes to unemployment law in regards to receipt of SSDI benefits means. Here is what I wrote to a clinic client about that decision:

You came to the clinic in April and May of this year with numerous questions about the impact of new unemployment law provisions on people receiving social security disability benefits. When last we spoke, you were planning on appealing on your own an administrative law judge decision that denied you all unemployment benefits because you were receiving social security disability income.

The Labor and Industry Review Commission (LIRC or Commission) has recently issued the enclosed decision, Kluczynski, UI Hearing No. 1400214AP (30 May 2014), that answers many of those questions. The Commission held in Kluczynski that receipt of social security disability benefits only affects unemployment benefits on the week when both unemployment and disability benefits are received. In other weeks where unemployment benefits can be received and for which no disability benefits are paid, claimants are still eligible for their unemployment benefits.

The Commission also goes into great detail in Kluczynski about the contention of the Department of Workforce Development (DWD or Department) that people claiming both disability and unemployment benefits are double-dipping. As the Commission concludes, that position is NOT supported by either social security disability law or unemployment law and wrongly presumes that individuals eligible for each are mutually exclusive to the other. It is an extremely well-argued decision, and I suspect that this decision will withstand judicial scrutiny if the Department should appeal.

Unfortunately, LIRC’s unemployment decision database is temporarily down. I’ll link to Kluczynski when the cite is fully operational again.

UPDATE: Here is the link to Kluczynski.

Not surprisingly, DWD has appealed all of the SSDI decisions LIRC has recently issued on this matter, including Kluczynski. What is strange is that all these appeals appear to be in Kenosha County, a county where most or all of the claimants at issue in these cases do NOT reside.